Why does hail fall from the sky?
Hail's Wild Ride
Why does hail fall from the sky?
Rain falls down. That makes sense — gravity pulls water toward the ground. But hail? Those aren't gentle drops. Those are ice chunks, sometimes as big as golf balls, crashing onto roofs and denting cars. How does ice even get up there in the first place?
It starts with a regular raindrop, high inside a thundercloud where the air is freezing cold. But here's the weird part: that drop doesn't fall. Instead, powerful winds inside the cloud — called updrafts — push it UP, like a leaf caught in a gust.
